Got Raw Milk? UCLA Professor of Medicine Says “No, Thanks!”
December 31, 2023West Virginia: Bill Legalizing Raw Milk Sales Now Law
April 10, 2024by Pete Kennedy, Esq.
Colorado–Legal Raw Milk Sales on the Table
2023 was a big year for the expansion and legalization of raw dairy sales in the state legislatures. The 2024 state legislative session could see more of the same; one state where an effort to legalize raw milk sales is underway is Colorado. Currently, only distribution of raw milk through herdshare agreements is legal in the state; Colorado is an outlier in the region—all other states in the Rocky Mountain time zone have legalized raw milk sales.
With Governor Jared Polis indicating he would sign a bill legalizing raw milk sales, the Water Resources and Agriculture Review Committee in the state General Assembly has drafted an interim committee bill to legalize raw milk sales. If the bill is going to get broad support from raw milk producers and consumers, its sponsor is going to have to amend several provisions in the current version.
The interim bill legalizes direct sales from the raw milk producers to consumers at the producer’s place of business, at the consumer’s residence, or at a farmers market or roadside market, if the producer registers with the state department of agriculture. That’s favorable enough, but other provisions in the bill are potentially so onerous that many producers could decide not to make the transition from operating a herdshares program to directly selling raw milk.
For starters, the bill gives the state department of agriculture power to issue rules relating to recordkeeping and the storage, handling, labeling and transportation of raw milk beyond requirements already in the bill. The agriculture department has the power to embargo a producer’s raw milk and to prohibit its sale during an investigation determining whether the producer has violated any requirements either of the bill or of the rules the department has issued. If the department finds the producer has committed violations, it can either (1) request that the attorney general or district attorney bring a criminal or civil action; or (2) “upon notice and an opportunity to be heard, impose a civil penalty in amount not to exceed $1000 per violation. Each container of raw milk sold in violation of this section constitutes a separate violation. If the department determines that a producer has committed two or more separate violations within a twelve-month period, the department may suspend for a period of twelve months, the raw milk producer’s registration….” [emphasis added].
In addition to the draconian penalties the bill prescribes, it also gives the department power to distribute “educational materials regarding the consumption of raw milk, which materials may include language, stating that there are no proven health benefits associated with the consumption of raw milk, but there are known harms associated with its consumption, such as severe infections.”
As it now stands, the punitive measures in the bill could easily be a deterrent to producers changing from a herdshare operation to selling raw milk; there are no penalties contained in the Colorado herdshare law (Colorado Revised Statutes, section 25–5.5–117). There could be little or no increase in access to raw milk for Colorado consumers if the bill’s content remains the same.
NEW MEXICO – RAW MILK SALES NOW LEGAL IN ALBUQUERQUE
On December 5, Mayor Tim Keller signed an ordinance legalizing raw milk sales in Albuquerque by state licensed producers, including at retail stores in the city. Albuquerque stores selling raw milk must hold a raw milk permit issued by the city’s Environmental Health Department.
Retail sales of raw milk have long been legal in the rest of the state, but there has been a total ban on any sales in Albuquerque which has over one quarter of the state’s population.
Activist Lissa Knudsen, with help from the Raw Milk Institute and local raw milk producer Desmet Dairy, was the driving force behind the new ordinance. The ordinance passed out of the Albuquerque city council’s Finance and Government Operations Committee in October 2023 and the City Council the following month en route to the mayor’s desk.
Now that the sale of raw milk in retail stores has expanded to a city with over half a million people, the number of licensed dairies in New Mexico should increase. There are few licensed raw milk dairies in the state at the present time.
This article was published in the Winter 2023 issue of Wise Traditions in Food, Farming, and the Healing Arts, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation.
